Share your child-friendly craft ideas and win a Chuggington Prize Pack!

[BHCommunity]

What kind of craft do you get up with your children? We're looking for craft inspiration for:

- craft in general (just what do you do with those loo paper rolls and glitter glue?)
- Christmas (do you get creative with hand prints and paper plates?)
- Easter (do you make baskets?)
- Mother's and Father's Day (what treasures have you created or received?)
- Halloween (boo! what scary craft fun have you done?)
- everyday-the-kids-are-bored-craft

We'll be choosing three craft ideas as winners of a Chuggington prize pack with a Wilson Train, Sticker Activity Book and Colouring in book.

18112

Your suggestions will also be featured on our Boredom Busters pages and credited to you!

[anewme]

Quiet books (felt books are easy to make with the kids.)

Different coloured felt
scissors
pva or craft glue
permanent pen
wool

pick a design or theme
use some felt as the pages and some cut out the shapes, pictures etc.
use the pen to draw on or glue to stick on any details you want to add.
Using the scissors and wool make a pouch at the end of the book to put the shapes, pictures.
Bind the book with the wool

Now your child can use the pictures to make their own story each time they read the book.

# the felt will stick to it self while they make the story.

[sunlight78]

TISSUE BOX GUITAR

- Take an empty tissue box ( or other cardboard box of appropriate size ).- cut an oval-shaped hole in the top.( parents have to do this step ).
- Stretch a few rubber bands around the box and over the hole.
- Put a pencil under the rubber bands on one side.
- Tape on a ruler/ paper-towel tube on the other side of the box ( where there is no hole ) and decorate the box.

[suzieblonde]

This is so fun and we can make so many strange and wonderful things. Its great when the weather is bad and the boredom is sinking in. Scraps that are laying in your sewing basket or craft box are wonderful as well.

stickers
googlie eyes
scissors
pipe cleaners
glue
old cotton reels
wool

Thread pipe cleaners through cotton reels and start making what your heart desires, nothing is impossible and you can even use plasticine. :cheerleader1:

[alexmum78]

I make my own Finger paints now for the Kids - Easy as, and so much cheaper, plus its edible. So need not to worry about that.


3 cups water
1 cup cornflour
food coloring ( I use red, blue, & yellow) (blue & yellow mixed makes green, red & blue mixed makes purple)


Directions-



In a medium saucepan, bring water to a boil. Remove boiling water from heat and add cornflour mixture. Return to heat, stirring constantly. Boil until the mixture is clear and thick (about 1 minute). Remove from heat.

As the mixture is cooling, divide into separate bowls and add food coloring. Let the children carefully mix in the coloring.

[Arielle3]

Father/Mother's Day Card: This is a lovely sentiment and a great keep sake to celebrate this special occasion

Materials:
Coloured cardboard
Glue Stick
Non-toxic ink or washable paint + brush (Crayola is good)
Coloured crayons/textas
Photo of your child- could include your favourite photo with daddy or mummy
Laminate machine
Options: For that extra creativity factor, use a holepunch and ribbon. This will allow the card to hang

Method:

1. Your child can use the coloured markers to decorate the card and create their special message on the cardboard via picture, colour, and/or words for mum/dad. You can help write the message.
2. Place the ink/paint on their hand or foot or both
3. Make their mark on the card i.e. stamp their foot and/or handprint on the cardboard
4. Wash your child's foot and/or hand
5. Stick the photo on the card with glue
6. Allow the card to dry (5 minutes)
7. Laminate the cardboard using the laminate machine (this is a good idea as it will make the card last longer)
8. If you would like to hang the card, use a holepuch to puch two holes in the top of the card.
9. Feed the ribbon through the holes and tie together
10. Now you have the perfect fathers/mothers day card. Remember- the best card you can recieve is a hand made card- and this is extra special as it is from your child. It has their special touch- from their hand/foot print- to their drawings and photo that you have forever!!!!

[sunlight78]

OATMEAL BOX CRADLE
- Cut an oatmeal box into the shape of a cradle. Glue the remaining part of the lid onto the cradle.

- Glue construction paper or fabric scraps onto the outside of the cradle.

-Decorate with paper, markers, or fabric scraps. A cute little cradle for a favorite doll or teddy bear is ready...

[Nazgul]

Foamy paintings...

Materials:

Paper
Food dye
Shaving foam
Plastic take away containers
Stirring stick

Method:
1. Spray the shaving foam into containers.
2. Add a few drops of food dye into the containers with shaving foam.
3. Stir color into the foam.
4. Let the children grab some foam and paint on the paper!

[sunlight78]

CARDBOARD BOX EASEL

-Take an empty cardboard box , tape it shut, and make a straight line along opposite corners.

-Cut along the diagonals and along the straight lines connecting them.

-Make 2 small slits for the clothes pins. Attach a piece of paper with the clothes pins and allow kids to write on it or draw whatever they want.

[sunlight78]

CEREAL BOX DESK ORGANISER...

Materials required....
an empty cereal box,
a gift wrapping paper ,
glue,
a pair of scissors and a marker.

1. Cut the box in a trapeze shape or triangular shape.
2. Trace the sides of the box on the gift wrapping paper, cut and stick with glue.
3. For a twist - Cut the shape of a tail and two ears out of brown paper and mark the edges with a marker; glue the ears and the tail to the box.
4. Draw the eyes and the legs with a marker.

[Sunflower5]

We have done pipe cleaner spiders, robots made from nappy boxes, dinosaur made from nappy boxes and some hand stitched hand puppets, but right now it's moshie monster characters made from odd socks you don't need.

You turn the socks inside out so the wrong side is showing and stuff with screwed up newspaper untill you for a hard ball and then from the open end part of the sock you turn it back over the open end so it is sealed. You then get some coloured felt and cut out the eyes, nose and mustache and glue them on with a hot glue gun and there you have some cheap Moshie Monster toys your kids will love! :smiliedance::hyper::smiliedance:

[sunlight78]

CEREAL BOX CITY

Materials required...
cereal boxes 8
scissor
glue
marker
Newspaper or chart paper ( which ever is easily available )

-cut out the back of each box, leaving the sides and the top intact. I let the kids paint the boxes with painting colours and helped them cut out windows and doors.
-Write names of the buildings( school, hospital, mall etc )on a paper and paste them onto the front.
Add few special features (stair cases, made by folding a box top like an accordion).
Add some more detail work (rugs, wall-hangings, apples and oranges on the store shelves) as desired by kids.

[Sunflower5]

We love to make home made Christmas Crackers for the tree and the dinner table.

We get some toilet rolls,
Crepe Paper, scissors and
thin curling ribbon.
You will also need some fun trinkets and a little joke for inside.
Stickers optional.

Put the fun things inside the roll and a joke. Cut the desired length of crepe paper and roll the toilet roll in it. Twist the ends and tie off with the ribbon. If you wish to decorate the cracker with star stickers or some kind of Christmas stickers you can do. Enjoy!
Certainly much cheaper than buying them and they come from the heart. :celebrate:

[Missemzy]

Last year I let my toddler make her own Santa sake for Santa to put presents in for her.

-A plain cheap pillow case (Any colour)
-Glitter glue
-fabric paint
-felt
-ball-balls
-a hot glue gun ( Parents help needed)

Basically let your childs imagination at work decortating the pillow case anyway they want. Make Christmas fun and more personal. And allows your child to take pride in their master piece on Christmas day seeing it filled with gifts.:highfive:

[sunlight78]

CARDBOARD BOX CASTLE...

a box - any size
craft knife
string crayons, paint, markers

- Take a box and cut off the top flaps. To cut the cardboard, use a craft knife.
- Cut out a wide rectangle along the front front, sides, and the back to form towers at the corners.
-Cut out rectangular crenelations along the entire top of the castle.
-Draw a drawbridge at the front of the castle. Using the point of a scissors, poke 2 small holes in the sides of the drawbridge and on both sides of the wall next to it. Cut out the drawbridge.
-Attach a string to each side of the drawbridge and the adjoining wall.
-Decorate the castle with paint, markers, crayons, or decoupage pictures.

[sunlight78]

CARDBOARD BOX FIRE TRUCK

Materials required..

A cardboard box
Four paper plates
Red and black paint
3 paint brushes
Black, white, blue, and orange craft paper
Scissors
Glue
-Paint a cardboard box red and let it dry.
-Cut two headlights and fenders from white craft paper and glue them to one end of the truck.
-Cut a windshield and windows from light blue craft paper and glue them to one end of the truck.
-Glue the wheels to the truck.
-Cut two ladders from brown craft paper and cut two hoses from black craft paper. Cut white hub caps. Glue all of these to the sides of the truck.
A great fire truck to ride in or to use as a toy box is ready..

[Pregnor]

Coming up for xmas we are in full flight with red and green paintings! These are done on our long role of paper (from Ikea) which is then used to wrap gifts from us to the rest of the family!

For gifts we have bought tshirt paints and plain tshirts to make tshirts for everyone with some stencils my son picked (dinosaurs, of course!)

[mum2ss]

Christmas Craft
Pop up Santa
1. Recycle a small box like a small tea box or similar and paint it brown and draw black lines across it like bricks.
2. Cut the lid of the box off and make a small slit in the bottom to fit a paddlepop stick through.
3. Next colour in a santa small enough to fit into the box and cut him out and glue onto the end of the paddlepop stick.
4. You will then be able to pop your santa down and up the chimney by moving the paddlepop stick through the hole in the box.
* Small children will need help cutting out the santa, and cutting and drawing on the box but other than that it is a very child friendly craft.

[fichicken]

We do a different activity each day.

This week we have done

Bubble blower painting

What you need

straws x 3
child friendly buble mixture
card
food colouring x 3 colours
3x containers the size of a4 paper
as many pieces of a4 paper as you would like

Instructions

fill the containers to a halfway mark with a mixture of bubble mix and water
place 3 drops of food colouring in each , we did a red, a blue, and a yellow

Place one straw beside each container

To Create

1. get you child to sit or stand infront of container 1 and use the straw to blow bubbles till they begin overflowing in the containers.

2.Then take a piece of paper and gently lay it across the container for 3 seconds ,lift it gently and hang to dry

repeat step one and two for each colour

Learning outcomes

Fine motor control, colour recognition, mouth control great for speech, social interaction via following instructions.

This is suitable from the age of 2 onwards and its so much fun and very easy to clean up afterwards:)

[liammsmummy]

with all the wonderfull abstract paintings my 2 year old does its a shame to throw them and hard to keep so many huge bits of paper depending on the ocassion we cut out some shapes from them and make cards for family and friends or use as wrapping paper for birthdays, we now have a amzing colection of decorations and enough now to make a paper chain to decorate our xmas tree with and make angels adding peoples photos as faces

[nwiyani]

Easy craft to do for day-to-day activities.

What you need is:
spare buttons
small bells
Thick Thread

Measure the thread to your kids size. Insert colourful buttons with the threads mixing it with the bells. Continue untill finished and tie it up.

[naebie]

Some great ideas here!

We all know the potential for mess when painting with the littlies, some of the things we do to combat that are putting paint in empty roll on deodorant bottles, or using a weak food dye in a squirt bottle and spraying on a piece of calico.

Paper plates with a hole cut out of the middle and painted with green and metallic plates make great home made wreaths- add some tinsel and ribbon and they come up really nice!

ETA- Paper plates are fantastic- they can become Jack'o'lanterns for Halloween very easily as well, cut out eyes and mouth and cover with cellophane :)

[One of THOSE mums!]

Don't know if this is as much a 'craft' as it is an activity. But it is great for kids who are too young to cut, paste etc.

But all you need is wide sticky tape.

Place a piece around the wrist sticky side out. Makes a sticky bangle. Then you can go for a walk and find different things to stick on it. Funny shaped leaves, flowers, gumnuts. You can go to the beach and stick on bits of shells. Or at home stick on bits of felt, buttons, mini pom pons etc.

My almost 2 yr old loves it. We often put Another piece of tape over it and keep it. Or if it's flat enough cut it and make it into a book mark.

[CupidsVictim]

im a sucker for the classics... my DD is too young at the moment but i make these with my nephews:

- pasta/macaroni necklaces
- face masks made from paper plates and decorated with pipe cleaners, paints, sequins, feathers etc

our favorite at the moment is making salt dough sculptures...

to make:
1c salt
1c water
3c plain flour

combine water and salt until dissolved, add flour to form a dough (adjusting flour as necessary)

sculp the salt dough in to whatever shapes, figures you desire (We have just made ornaments for the xmas tree) - place on a baking tray

bake at 90 degrees celsius for at least 2 hours or until they sound hollow when tapped.

decorate with paints, glitter etc. we cover them in PVA glue once decorated so they go nice and shiny.

enjoy :)

ps: does anyone remember the show 'art attack' with Neil Buchanan? that's where all my ideas come from! i was sooo obsessed as a kid i have every.episode on VHS tape Haha



Sent from my GT-I9100 using Bubhub

[sunlight78]

MARBLE RUN MADE OF TOILET ROLLS...

Materials....

tubes from paper towel and toilet paper rolls, masking tape, paint, markers, crayons, empty tissue box ,scissor.

Instructions..

Cover the tubes with coloured tape. Use a craft knife to make half-pipe tubes and window cutouts .
-Attatch self-adhesive magnet strips on one side of the tubes and attach them to the refrigerator.
-Let the creative kids assemble the run with the tissue box at the bottom on the floor to catch the speeding marbles.

[Myztiks#1Fan]

A few weeks ago we made medals which can also double up as home made xmas decos.

We used metalic cardboard which we then added stickers to.

Punch a hole with a hole punch and put a piece of string inside. Our medals werent overly big but big enough for kids to decorate.

You can draw, paint, use stickers or whatever really takes your fancy at the time.

coming to you from my phone

[sunlight78]

SHAKERS @ YOGURT CUPS

materials...
Empty yogurt cups
glue
Yardstick, wooden spoon
dried beans

instructions...

-Pour various amounts of different beans into the yogurt cup and shake it to discover a sound of your choice.
-glue the cup to the handle.
-decorate the cup and handle with markers,stickers and glitters.
- It gives my son hours of entertainment.

[IndigoJ]

This probably wouldnt be a favourite with the parents, but my son enjoyed this craft activity:
1. (https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/305006_2288090012195_1547289524_32387087_7212038_n .jpg)
2. (https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/296531_2288092892267_1547289524_32387098_1924906_n .jpg)
3.
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/301388_2288090932218_1547289524_32387090_702632_n. jpg)And of course he needed some on himself, just to complete the activity.
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s720x720/310428_2288089052171_1547289524_32387084_53878_n.j pg)

[IndigoJ]

Havent read the thread so sorry if this is a repeat.

A good activity for older kids is Puff paint
1 tablespoon SR flour.
A few drops of food colouring
1 tablespoon salt and enough water to make a paste

Then you paint the design and microwave for 30 or so sec until the paint puffs and dries.

We did this with afterschool care, the kids went crazy for it

[Lemmings]

akshat is clearly just googling and pasting things =/ I think some of her posts should be removed to be honest... its not really fair and its off putting to some other people who want to join in.

[IndigoJ]

Quite possible Homestar, but to be fair i googled mine. I did it at OSHC where i worked but couldnt remember the recipe so googled to find it. Its not something ive done with DS yet

[Lemmings]

i think its a bit different though googling something you've done or googling for the sake of googling just to win a prize

[BHCommunity]

Thankyou to everyone for your fabulous craft ideas, you're a creative bunch! A little bit of googling is ok, but we do especially love the tried and tested suggestions, so a big thankyou for sharing those, we'd love to see more :)

P.S You've given me some great things to try with my DD, thankyou!

[Myztiks#1Fan]

Currently i am collecting tissue boxes so we can paint them to turn them into cars or monster slippers for dress ups(obviously the slippers wont be as good if your kids have massive feet lol)

For the slippers paint them and decorate as you like and out a hole big enough from where the tissues come out so feet can slide in and out.

coming to you from my phone

[PinkButterfly]

I have done a scrap book with my DD since she was 18months. Initially she just glued things in then as she got older could practice cutting things herself and then sticking them in. We have just used pictures from magazines of things like animals, cars, tractors, trains, favourite TV characters etc etc and even shopping catalogues of toys and food/fruit.

It has kept her busy and its been v.cheap - the cost of a scrapbook and some glue!!!

[BHCommunity]

A huge thank you to everyone for adding your craft suggestions here. My little assistant has pulled 3 names out of her Princess handbag and the winners of the Chuggington packs are:


PinkButterfly
Tamara
IndigoJ

Congratulations!

:smiliedance:

And if you have any more suggestions please do add them here, as we are adding them into our Boredom Busters Guide fully credited to you - http://www.bubhub.com.au/kids-activities-things-to-do.php

:)

[IndigoJ]

Yay thankyou. DS1 Will love it. Hopefully he wont feel the need to paint everything downstairs again :laughing:

[Sunflower5]

Congrats to the winners. Very deserving! :-)

[PinkButterfly]

Fantastic - thank-you!!! Will come in handy for the pre-school holidays coming up!!:wave:

[suzieblonde]

congrats to the winners, well done!!!